Hahahaha

Benton and three other employees’ jobs will be eliminated due to the reorganization, and could save the county as much as $1.2 million over the next two years, McCauley said. Benton’s salary and benefits package totaled about $154,000 in 2015, according to Clark County.

Benton’s position has been the subject of continuing controversy after he was appointed to lead the department in May 2013 on the orders of Republican County Commissioners Tom Mielke and David Madore. As the controversy built, both men, who at the time had sole authority to hire department heads, have denied their role in Benton’s hiring. Instead, they blame then-County Administrator Bill Barron for the action.

On the one hand, I know, I know. I know. There are all sorts of government orgs, non-profits, and businesses that hire legislators. It’s not really that different from the former members of Congress (even ones I like) who are now lobbyists. It’s not that different from Ed Murray’s job at the UW (Seattle Times link). It’s not the best look, but whatever.

But on the other hand, I am definitely petty enough to laugh when it’s an asshole like Benton. Especially given the process in the first place. So ha!

It’s been three years almost to the day since Madore and Mielke tapped Benton to lead the environmental services department during a now-infamous board time meeting in 2013. The issue has continued to be a popular subject for those who comment to the council, despite Madore and Mielke’s continued insistence that they never directed Barron to hire Benton in the first place.

Benton’s appointment also drew criticism from around the state, including a Seattle Times editorial headlined “State Sen. Don Benton for environmental post? Really?”

And I’m legit sorry to anyone else who got caught up in the restructuring.

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“McCauley told Benton in January that he would not be permitted to work on county business while he was performing his duties as a legislator in Olympia. ‘Effective immediately please be advised that as a county employee and department director, you are expected to be at work during the county’s regular business hours — Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.,’ McCauley wrote in an email to Benton. ‘You may no longer report work time on your timesheet unless you are in county offices and that time is during regular business hours.’ Benton pushed back to McCauley’s request. ‘I do not understand what I am being punished for?’ Benton responded. ‘You have taken away my ability to telecommute which greatly impairs my ability to … pay my bills.'”

What? Benton can’t pay his bills on his six-figure county salary PLUS his legislative salary and per diem? Really? He must have a very expensive mistress.

If you hurry up and turn on KIRO News this morning, you can laugh at some more jobs going away:

(from Facebook): SELF-ORDER KIOSKS: Wendy’s has announced they will start rolling out robotic kiosks, similar to this one at a Florida McDonald’s. At 5:45am & 6:30am, why Wendy’s says rising minimum wages are hurting their bottom line.

Hey Better, something to do with your mind this morning other than listen to talk radio.

Again, this typical store pulls about 1.2 million per year in sales (from Nat. Restaurant Association figures). Raising the price of a meal from $5.00 to $5.50 will earn them an additional $120k. That’s $10,000 each month to put toward starting wages. And ultimately they get a better, more stable workforce with lower turnover, lower training costs, fewer sick days, and fewer unexcused absences. For a stack of nickles.

But Boob wants us all to believe that instead they’re going to buy million dollar robots. When retailers everywhere started putting in self-check systems he didn’t have a minimum wage hike to blame. So he stayed silent. There are lots of reasons why many many industries have historically invested in automation. Lowering labor costs has always been one of them. But it’s never been about fifty cents.

“Deep learning and reinforcement learning have both been around for a while, but until recently it was not at all clear how powerful they were, and how far they could be extended. In fact, it’s still not, but applications are improving at a gallop, with no end in sight. And the applications are broad, including speech recognition, credit card fraud detection, and radiology and pathology. Machines can now recognize faces and drive cars, two of the examples that Polanyi himself noted as areas where we know more than we can tell.”

Great comment “It’s not the automation per se that causes the problems. it’s more the fact that we insist that people somehow “work” in exchange for goods, services and housing, but less and less of that work is needed to provide goods, services and housing, thanks to automation.”

Hold on now. Boob never intended for this to go down the future shock/automation rabbit hole. As much as automation has replaced manual labor over the last fifty years, it remains vital to cheap labor Libertardian greed heads like Boob to blame any resulting job losses on “excessive wages” and “liberal meddling” in the beloved free market. Boob didn’t mean to post a link about automation putting folks out of work. He meant to post a link about labor laws putting folks out of work. Abolish the weekend! Restore the work houses! Save a horse – harness a poor kid!

@7 Actually the legislature is rather productive considering it’s part time. It’s certainly more productive than Congress and even accomplishes compromise. Though sometimes the Washington Legislature doesn’t always read through what they are doing. Such as the changes that were made to the corporation law last year. So how do you make our part time legislature more productive? Or is that what we really want? Since we must have a democratic government we can’t make the governor first counsel or dictator. Since they are part time they have to have a second income or are we putting in the idle rich. Maybe we should have a lottery style legislature. Everyone’s name goes in the barrel for a district and so many get pulled. Kinda like jury duty. That seems to be a pretty conservative idea your supporting in having a part time legislature. Seems to be a small government sentiment.

@9 So has Ross passed the bar? So some intelligent human attorney may challenge the use of Ross as he cannot offer advice to a client even if the client is a law firm. The courts might just have a problem with that. Though most judges have a few lawyers they would not mind Ross replacing. Also is Ross ethical? What kind of ethics are programmed in? A firm can already get things written by paralegals in India for less than they would have to pay paralegals here in the states. Shakespeare must be rolling over in his grave as how do you hang the lawyers if they are digital. Are digital lawyers more slippery than the human king? How do you tell if Ross is lying. He doesn’t have lips. He’s a computer and transparent he’s going to be a lousy lawyer.

@6 and @7 ect. Wendy’s would introduce the new kiosk with or without any increase or decrease in the minimum wage. As long as consumers use it. We as consumers will decide if the kiosk is a success perhaps it’s not in our best interest as consumers and workers to use it. We probably will. Or feel forced to.

The reason Wendy’s will go with an expensive machine is that it will replace one or more employees and will decrease costs. It can operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year minus maintenance and cleaning. It will do the same things exactly the same way every time. Or at least it should. If you could keep the store open 20 hours it will work those 20 hours with no complaints, sickness, overtime. ect. The savings and productivity is the 140 hours a week it can work. (Yes it could work another 28 hours a week, but there aren’t a lot of Wendy’s that stay open 24 hours.

As RR has pointed out this could be boon to everyone rather than the owners of Wendy’s (presumable the stock holders). This technology could replace low skill jobs and allow those workers to go to school, raise children, read a book, clean up a polluted stream, post buffalo versus wolf videos, take in a Mariners game, argue in court, build a house. argue with trolls on HA, ect ect ect. Then again where are the jet packs and flying cars?I’m more likely to find the Mystery Machine, and Scooby. Oh and Scooby doesn’t care if he gets his Scooby snacks from a human or a kiosk.

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